Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Modelling of Potential Swedish 2022 Forest Fire Areas

Zhotkevich Gutman, Albert LU (2024) In Student thesis series INES NGEK01 20241
Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
Abstract (Swedish)
Forest fires are a danger both to society and to the climate. The forestry sector is an important and large element of Sweden’s economy, nature and landscape. Forest fires directly impact the economic viability of the forest industry and the people dependant on it. Forest fires also impact society, by necessitating measures to combat and prevent forest fires, and endangering human lives. A key part of effective forest fire response is the ability to comprehend the behaviour and spread of fires, thus being able to predict and prepare for potential fires. This is mostly done by implementation of predictive models that consider different variables, like weather, topography and fuel availability, to estimate the possible fire behaviour. This... (More)
Forest fires are a danger both to society and to the climate. The forestry sector is an important and large element of Sweden’s economy, nature and landscape. Forest fires directly impact the economic viability of the forest industry and the people dependant on it. Forest fires also impact society, by necessitating measures to combat and prevent forest fires, and endangering human lives. A key part of effective forest fire response is the ability to comprehend the behaviour and spread of fires, thus being able to predict and prepare for potential fires. This is mostly done by implementation of predictive models that consider different variables, like weather, topography and fuel availability, to estimate the possible fire behaviour. This study attempts to model the potential area that selected Swedish forest fires could have achieved were they to have been undisturbed. This is done by selecting eight forest fire sites from 2022 and using the historical Fire Weather Index (FWI) precent for these sites to estimate the possible direction of forest fire spread. This is combined with a Land Cover dataset to dictate which areas could host a forest fire and which could not. Six different sensitivity assumptions were made for how the FWI would impact the forest fire spread as well as three assumptions for how far the forest fire would be able to spread. All the modelling was carried out in a GIS program. In total 144 different forest fire areas were estimated. The modelling approach used has some virtue, particularly due to easily accessible data, but would need to be further developed and compared to other model outputs to be able to give an indicator of effectiveness. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Zhotkevich Gutman, Albert LU
supervisor
organization
course
NGEK01 20241
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
GIS, Fire Weather Index (FWI), Forest Fire, Sweden, 2022
publication/series
Student thesis series INES
report number
656
language
English
id
9161252
date added to LUP
2024-06-13 12:18:09
date last changed
2024-06-13 12:18:09
@misc{9161252,
  abstract     = {{Forest fires are a danger both to society and to the climate. The forestry sector is an important and large element of Sweden’s economy, nature and landscape. Forest fires directly impact the economic viability of the forest industry and the people dependant on it. Forest fires also impact society, by necessitating measures to combat and prevent forest fires, and endangering human lives. A key part of effective forest fire response is the ability to comprehend the behaviour and spread of fires, thus being able to predict and prepare for potential fires. This is mostly done by implementation of predictive models that consider different variables, like weather, topography and fuel availability, to estimate the possible fire behaviour. This study attempts to model the potential area that selected Swedish forest fires could have achieved were they to have been undisturbed. This is done by selecting eight forest fire sites from 2022 and using the historical Fire Weather Index (FWI) precent for these sites to estimate the possible direction of forest fire spread. This is combined with a Land Cover dataset to dictate which areas could host a forest fire and which could not. Six different sensitivity assumptions were made for how the FWI would impact the forest fire spread as well as three assumptions for how far the forest fire would be able to spread. All the modelling was carried out in a GIS program. In total 144 different forest fire areas were estimated. The modelling approach used has some virtue, particularly due to easily accessible data, but would need to be further developed and compared to other model outputs to be able to give an indicator of effectiveness.}},
  author       = {{Zhotkevich Gutman, Albert}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{Student thesis series INES}},
  title        = {{Modelling of Potential Swedish 2022 Forest Fire Areas}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}